


This Thing of Darkness

by Decepticonsensual



Series: The World Is Not Enough (Tales from Autobot Spec Ops) [7]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 00:59:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13260279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: Alone and hunted on a frozen wasteland of a planet, a wounded and starving Getaway finds that his mind is starting to play tricks on him.  Set post-LL 11, with spoilers up through that issue.





	This Thing of Darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thoughtsdemise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtsdemise/gifts).



His wheels skitter across the ice, struts too weak to grip. His engine is spinning frantically on fumes; the stink of scorched metal from his empty tanks is sharp in the frigid air. It’s a dangerous scent. To a predator, it screams vulnerability; it says that Getaway is out of fuel and out of options, trapped out here in the wasteland. And make no mistake, a predator is what’s stalking him now, somewhere out in the shifting, deceptive shadows beyond the reach of the moonlight.

 

He’s running. By now, he’s running for the sake of running. There are no allies waiting for him over the next ridge.

 

Getaway pushes his engine into redline, ignoring the painfully obvious smoke trail he’s leaving and the flashing clusters of warning lights at the edges of his vision. This planet is a frozen desert in all directions. There’s no hiding; the only escape is distance.

 

A treacherous crack in the ice catches his wheel, and Getaway spins out, metal shrieking as he tries to arrest his skid. Just beyond, the ice shelf comes to an abrupt end, plummeting down a few thousand feet to a river below. Getaway transforms and flings himself sideways, barely missing the cliff edge. He hits the ground hard, shattering frost-weakened plating in a dozen places. Energon drips onto the ice as Getaway clings to the ground with shaking fingers.

 

_Get up._

 

He lifts his head.

 

For a moment, he assumes it’s his pursuer, ordering him to stand for the killing blow. But the optics that meet his aren’t red. They’re blue, and familiar, and colder than the ice beneath him.

 

Getaway scrambles backwards. “Boss – look, you gotta understand, I didn’t mean for anyone else to get hurt.”

 

The moonlight is pooling all around him, glittering off the ice and illuminating everything – everything but the mech in front of him. The light beads off Prowl’s plating and falls from him in heavy drops, leaving him a slice of shadow, lit only by those optics.

 

His feet are trailing in thin air above the ravine.

 

Getaway’s engine stalls as Prowl drifts closer. “I had to deal with Megatron – your orders –”

 

_You failed me._

 

The air is so cold it burns him. “Megatron’s dead, boss, I swear. I didn’t fail.”

 

_And the others? The Autobots you sold to a murderer? Whose orders were those?_

 

He swallows against a sick churning in his empty tanks. “Look, I fragged up, I know that. The deal with Sunder was too far. I just –” There’s a moment where he searches those twin points of blue light for a mercy that isn’t there. “I couldn’t turn back. I _knew_ what you’d say, sometimes you’ve got to cut bait, but I couldn’t. If I did, then everything I’d done up to that point would have been for nothing. And Skids...” Getaway lowers his gaze to the ice, and the slow creep of his own blood across it in little rivulets.

 

_You took Skids away from me._

 

“I know.” It’s a strangled whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

 

It begins as more of a feeling than a sound, a dizzying vibration underneath him. It’s as if, on the flat ice, an avalanche has started. The roar builds until it’s a physical pressure against his plating, throwing him down, pinning him. And he can’t tell if the words are a part of the roar, or somehow inside his own head, but it feels like they’re slicing into his processor. They are bright and terrible.

 

_YOU TOOK SKIDS AWAY FROM ME!_

 

“He was a traitor, Boss!” Getaway yells, struggling up onto his knees. The sound of his voice is almost lost in the scream of the world around him. “I loved him, but he picked Megatron over me, over _us._ And you still – you still –” He folds over, squeezing his optics shut so he won’t have to meet the apparition’s gaze as he blurts out, “You still care more about him than me!”

 

The roar dies as abruptly as if it’s been switched off.

 

_You?_

 

Behind shuttered optics, Getaway has the distinct sense of Prowl swooping low, studying him; the kind of mute dissection that has always made Getaway feel flayed open.

 

_You really think you were ever more to me than fodder?_ _Bodyguard_ _and backup plan for Skids, my_ _truly_ talented _agent. Then my optics and audials on the Lost Light, and my hands, when needed. You exist to be used. You were_ constructed _as a tool for people like me,_ real _people. But you started developing delusions of your own importance, you blunted, stupid piece of metal. And you destroyed yourself._ The uncomfortably close regard pulls back, leaving a sense of absence even more painful.

 

_You are nothing._

 

Getaway’s optics fly open, wet and half-blinded, to see Prowl receding across the ice. The apparitionhas almost melted away into the shadows behind the moonlight.

 

“You told me I was special!”

The figure stops, peering back over its shoulder. It’s a gesture so familiar that Getaway can feel his optics welling up: those searing blue optics, peeking back over the edge of a doorwing, looking into his spark.

 

He can almost imagine that Prowl smiles.

 

_You forgot the cardinal rule._

 

Getaway’s stomach drops out, his fuel tanks clenching on nothing as he tries to keep from purging.

 

The cardinal rule of Spec Ops. The principle so basic that it’s practically a physical law. Water is wet, light is both a wave and a particle, and _Prowl lies._

 

 

***

 

The moon looms huge in the sky as it begins to set, its slanting rays catching the pool of spilt energon coating the ice, and pricking out glittering threads of lilac and amaranth and garnet.

 

Beside it, the battered frame of Getaway lies still.

 

 

***

 

 

“I take it Death’s Head has been paid in full.”

 

“Yep, just like you asked. He seemed happy enough.” Impactor shifts, and the motion, in a mech not given to nervous fidgeting, draws Prowl’s gaze.

 

“What?”

 

“You know what. You’re going to have to put a bullet in this kid’s head – a real one, not one of your fancy brain bullets – and I’m just wondering why you didn’t slip the big, bad alien bounty hunter a little extra to take care of it for you.”

 

“Are you serious? I had to pay extra to make sure he brought him in alive.”

 

The figure on the hospital bed seems terribly small. The once-sleek plating is a mass of patches and scar metal, and an IV drips medical-grade energon into dry, starving fuel lines. Four sets of cuffs connect wrists and ankles to the bedframe, but it’s a formality. While he’s unconscious, they’re unnecessary; they won’t hold him for a second, if he ever wakes up.

 

“What, then? Not a trial; I know you better than that. Aequitas was dangerous enough.” There’s a hint of bitterness in Impactor’s voice, but it’s an old bitterness, almost comfortable. “You’d never let them put one of your precious agents on the stand, and risk Optimus and the world finding out everything you’ve done. But you can’t let him go.”

 

Prowl is silent, staring at Getaway’s motionless frame as if he can see underneath his plating. At his side, his hand twitches, lifts halfway to touching… and then drops and stills.

 

“ _Prowl._ You know what he did.”

 

“And I knew what Roadbuster had done, too. Are you sure you want to go down that road with me?”

 

“Not the same.”

 

“And the solution won’t be the same.” Prowl hasn’t taken his optics off the broken figure in the bed. “Leave him to me.”

 

Shaking his head, Impactor turns to go. “Suit yourself. But don’t call me when you decide it’s better to shoot him and be done with it. I’m through cleaning up your messes.”

 

“Don’t worry.” Prowl’s voice is soft. “I do take some of what you say to spark, you know. And it’s about time I got my own hands dirty.”

**Author's Note:**

> "These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil—  
> For he's a bastard one--had plotted with them  
> To take my life. Two of these fellows you  
> Must know and own; this thing of darkness I  
> Acknowledge mine." - Prospero, The Tempest


End file.
